Crazy Snow, Hell Month, Best Big Sib Ever

This is my nephew (on Wife's side of the fam) walking through the recent foot+ of snow we've gotten.
How's THAT for cute?

For those of you that don't know, for those here at MSU CHM February doesn't just contain Valentine's Day. It also contains Exam Hell. This means exams up the wazoo, and no joke. To give you some perspective, in the first month of classes we've spent about 80 hours in lecture and have had only 4 exams and two quizzes. Not too bad. In the next month (February = Hell Month) we will have eight lecture exams, a neuroanatomy lab exam, and an online quiz in Microbiology. At one point during the next four weeks, we will have four exams in seven days - WHILE having new lecture material dumped at us each day. And the day after the fourth of those four exams, I will get on a plane and fly to Costa Rica for my Spring Break voluntary study abroad experience. Getting pumped, right?

Wrong.

Well, not entirely wrong, but still getting waaaaaay stressed out. This is a lot of work. I don't think I've ever studied as much as I'm planning on studying these next few weeks. Posting has been sparse lately, as I've kicked it into high gear this semester in an effort to perform to my absolute fullest. It is showing in my grades so far, which I honestly never thought could be this high. I still have this nervous feeling that it has all been a fluke so far, and the next exam is going to kill me, but so far my study strategy (which essentially equals reading the coursepacks until my eyes bleed while making table after table after table and washing it all down with 8,293,812 practice questions) has been working well for me. That, and the awesome time I've spent with Wife lately. She came back to school with me this past weekend, and I made the 1hour+ round trip to bring her back this afternoon. No good, that.

The unexpected answer to getting stressed out?

The Best Big Sib Ever.

MSU CHM has a "Big Sibling" program, which I signed up for at the beginning of the year. Basically, they match you up with an M2 (second year student) to show you the ropes. I requested to have my cousin's wife Bekah as my big sib, and has she ever come through for me! I got a message on Facebook to check my mailbox, and what did I find? This awesome, cheerful yellow envelope filling up some of the empty space that plagues my box! Here's what was inside:

Tonight just got better...